Terence Hines - Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

The first actual test of whether Therapeutic Touch practitioners could detect the human energy field was published by Rosa et al. in 1998. In this study, twenty-one different practitioners took part in a very simple test of their ability to detect the energy field. The practitioners sat on one side of a table. On the other side of the table was the experimenter. The table was divided by a “tall opaque screen” with two holes cut at the bottom through which, on each trial, the practitioner would put his hands. Once the hands were placed through the holes, a cloth was placed over the practitioner’s arms to prevent any cues from the experimenter’s side of the screen from being visible through the holes. On each trial, the experimenter would place one of her hands about four inches above either the left or right hand of the practitioner. Whether the left or right hand was the “target” was determined at random. The practitioners’ task was to simply indicate whether the experimenter’s hand was above his left or right hand. If practitioners can detect a human energy field, as they claim, then they should score well above the 50 percent chance figure in this situation. They did not. The overall score was 44 percent correct—below, but not significantly different from—chance.

The publication of the Rosa et al. (1998) study, the first to really examine one of the fundamental claims of Therapeutic Touch, generated a great deal of attention in the media. One reason, of course, was that the study was such a simple and elegant test of a controversial theory. Another reason was that the experiment was designed and carried out by a nine-year-old girl, Emily Rosa, who was also the second author on the paper. Emily’s mother, Linda Rosa, was the first author. Thus, Emily became the youngest person to author a scientific paper published in a professional scientific journal. Linda Rosa was a registered nurse who had serious doubts about Therapeutic Touch. Overhearing her mother discuss the issue, Emily came up with her experiment for a school science fair. This combination of an interesting and easily understood experiment with the human-interest aspect of a nine-year-old carrying it out was irresistible to the media. The story was featured on the evening news programs of all the major networks on March 31, 1998, and on the front page of the New York Times on April 1, as well as in hundreds of other newspapers and local television stations around the country and the world.

The reaction of the Therapeutic Touch community to the publicity was the expected outrage and a considerable amount of hand waving and unintentionally humorous attempts to discredit the results of Rosa et al. (1998). It was argued that the results weren’t valid since Emily Rosa, whose energy field was to be detected in the study, wasn’t ill, and therapeutic touch practitioners could only work with the energy fields of sick people. Oddly, nowhere in the Therapeutic Touch literature had this fact ever been mentioned—it was only trotted out as an excuse after the Rosa et al. findings were published. There was much New Age-type hand waving about the inability of science to deal with something as mysterious as Therapeutic Touch. Thus, Schuller and Pennachio (1998), two RNs at Yonkers (New York) General Hospital, said that there is a “problem inherent in using standard research methodologies to research holistic practices” such as therapeutic touch.

This, of course, is nonsense. Practitioners of therapeutic touch claim that they can perceive certain things and that certain procedures have effects on the patient. Either they do or they don’t. The only way to really find out is to do properly controlled studies that rule out placebo effects and other biasing phenomenon. Those who argue, when such studies fail to vindicate a particular cherished belief, “My claims can’t be evaluated by mere science” are engaged in special pleading—that their claims be subjected to a much less rigorous standard of proof than everyone else’s. In fact, of course, just the opposite should be the case. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, not less proof. Krieger herself (quoted in Kolata 1998) gave a response that is sadly revealing about her concept of scientific research, stating that Emily Rosa “completely misunderstood what the nature of basic research is” (p. A20).

Given the simplicity of the method used in Rosa et al. (1998), one might wonder why no one had thought to do such a study before. Perhaps Therapeutic Touch practitioners had thought of it, but they certainly never actually carried out such a study. Why not? As noted above, pseudoscientists rarely look closely at the phenomena they claim to be real. They rarely do well-controlled experiments to see if such phenomena are real. They much prefer to rely on intuition and the fact that they just “know” that the effect is real or the treatment works—no need to waste time doing boring old science! Schuller and Pennachio (1998) again provide a great example of this type of magical thinking. How do they know Therapeutic Touch works? “We have had very good experiences with therapeutic touch. We have had it done to ourselves, have learned how to do it, and use it with staff and patients” (p. 14A). I wonder if they would accept the same standard of proof for, say, a new drug therapy. Personal experience with a new therapy of whatever type,is valid as a guide to what might or might not be effective, but such experience, for reasons noted at the beginning of this chapter, should never be taken as the end point of an evaluation of a therapy’s effectiveness. Such experience can serve only as a guide to further objective testing of effectiveness.

While the Therapeutic Touch community may have thought about a study like Rosa et al. (1998), they obviously never carried one out. However, other, more skeptical investigators had thought of doing such a study. Specifically, James Randi tried to do a very similar study, but was unable to get any Therapeutic Touch practitioners to agree to take part (Kolata 1998). Randi, a well-known skeptic, felt that practitioners stayed away from his study because they knew it would be a careful, rigorous examination. Perhaps they didn’t take a study done by a nine-year-old as seriously.

Ironically, a later report (Long, Bernhardt, and Evans 1999) showed that a human energy field can be detected by one’s hands alone—but it’s not the human energy field therapeutic touch practitioners claim to be detecting. Long, Bernhardt, and Evans performed an experiment using apparatus much like that used by Rosa et al. (1998). Subjects, who were not Therapeutic Touch practitioners, placed their hands through a hole in a screen and tried to detect the presence or absence of the experimenter’s hand held over theirs. The experimenter’s hand was held at varying distances (three, four or six inches) above the subject’s hand. In one condition, subjects responded at a rate significantly above chance when the experimenter’s hand was three or four inches above theirs. Is this proof of the existence of the human energy field as postulated by Therapeutic Touch proponents? Not in the least: It’s proof that living human hands emit body heat, and other hands can detect that heat. This was shown in another condition in the experiment in which a piece of glass, which blocks heat, was placed between the hands of the subject and the experimenter. In this condition, even at the closest (three-inch) distance, subjects scored at chance.

In another study of a single Therapeutic Touch practitioner, Glickman and Gracely (1998) used a slightly different methodology. The practitioner tried to detect the presence of a hand inside a mold made of cardboard and fiberglass. This mold effectively blocked the heat from the hand when it was present. The practitioner scored at chance on this test.